For the first 10 minutes of a Sunday noon start in Syracuse, N.Y., the No. 10-ranked Notre Dame women’s basketball team was on pace to commit 36 turnovers.
And head coach Niele Ivey wanted nothing to do with dropping excuses like an early start, a recent rugged schedule or letdown following an emotional overtime win over No. 4 Texas on Thursday.
Nope. It was nothing more than a stretch of bad basketball, she said, and was ultimately proven right in a 93-62 rout of an outmanned Syracuse team, in the ACC opener for both teams in front of 4,440 in the JAMA Wireless Dome.
“I think it could have been mental fatigue, but at the end of the day my expectation is for us to have positive turnover ratios (ND finished with 20 turnovers, four above its average, and 22 assists), and play the right way,” said Ivey, who considered the league-opening win a statement.
“So, I don't really like to make excuses for anything. I think they know how to play. They know spacing, things that we've been working on, so we just have to make the right reads. Unfortunately, we didn't have that in the first quarter, but they responded and made better reads in the second half.”
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A start like that didn’t matter Sunday when the Irish (7-2, 1-0) got double-doubles from their three guards and the Orange (4-6, 0-1) went 13-for-35 – on layups – and shot just 32.5% overall. But it could be problematic when No. 2-ranked Connecticut visits Purcell Pavilion Thursday (7 p.m. EST on ESPN).
And Ivey acknowledged it.
“We just have to have the understanding that either a bad shot or a turnover, what that leads to for you, because they [UConn] kind of feed off of weaknesses, and they're a high-tempo, high-paced type of team. So, you just have to be really locked in.
“We've had a couple opponents that have really pressured us, so we're prepared. We're ready. We have some of the best guards and ball handlers in the country, so we'll be prepared.”
Those guards wound up with some large numbers Sunday, led by 6-1 senior Sonia Citron, who had her best overall game of the season. She has been coming on after a relatively slow start to the year.
Citron came in averaging 13 points on 40% shooting from the field and 30% on 3s. On Sunday, she had 25 points on 10-of-15 from the field, including 4-for-6 on 3s with 11 rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
Next was Hannah Hidalgo, who became the fastest Irish player to 1,000 points (44 games) after going 9-for-22 from the field to reach her average of 24 points – good for third in the country. She also had 10 rebounds and two steals.
Beth Morgan, now Beth Cunningham (1997 grad and former Irish assistant), previously, was the fastest to 1,000 points, in 60 games.
“It’s truly a blessing to be able to reach that goal, considering all of the guards like Arike [Ogunbowale], Skylar [Diggins-Smith], Jewell [Loyd] that have come through this program,” Hidalgo said. “I’m honored to have this accolade.”
Olivia Miles was two assists from a triple-double after a 20-point, 10-rebound, eight-assist effort.
Six players contributed to the turnovers, but Miles and Liatu King had four each, and freshman center Kate Koval five.
After her slow start with three turnovers in the first two minutes of the game, the 6-5 Koval settled down and had 12 points on 5-for-8 shooting as the Irish finished at 50% for the game (36-for-72).
“I definitely could have started off the game better, being more focused, limiting the turnovers,’ Koval said. “But it's my first [league] game, and we have such a long season. So, I think going from here, I'm just going to learn from it and just keep going forward.”
Koval also had a couple blocks to give her 33 for the season.
“Yeah, I think Kate, like coach says, has a big presence, so it's easy to find her,” Hidalgo said. “She runs well in transition, so it's easy when you know she's running in transition. And when she's posting up, she's just an easy target to hit.
“Also with her screens, it's easy for us because she takes up a lot of space, and we're able to get downhill. Not only that, she can pop and shoot the 3. You guys haven't seen it yet, but you know, we've seen it throughout the summer.”
For the record, she has yet to attempt a 3 in a game in nine college games.
Despite the nine-turnover first quarter, Notre Dame still managed to finish the frame ahead, 21-20, and slowly got it to 36-29 with Syracuse limited to 32% shooting from the field.
The slow start produced four ties and nine lead changes in the first 20 minutes.
Then it was over in a snap.
Notre Dame had just two turnovers in the third quarter and outscored the Orange, 29-13, for a 65-42 bulge. Hidalgo had nine points in the quarter and Citron eight. Twenty-six second half points came on layups.
“Yeah, they came back ready in the second half,” Ivey said. “They were really focused on our defense, focused on our pace. We knew that Syracuse might have shown a little bit of zone, so I thought that we did a really better job of shot selection, got to the rim, made big 3s, got some stops and got out in transition. I thought that really changed the pace when we got a chance to get stops and we ran the transition.”
The Irish overwhelmed Syracuse on the run with a 37-6 edge in fast break points.
They took care of the lane too with a 54-38 edge in rebounds.
King had an off day scoring, but had 12 boards to lead the Irish, to go along with four steals and two blocks. It was the first time since 2017 that at least three players had double-digit rebounds in a game for the Irish.
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